My Weekend

(Left: Tart and mini-me tart)

That's right, you can stop holding your breath now. I have gotten my mojo back! And all it took was a little gauntlet throwing.

You may have noticed that on friday I was not-so-subtly challenged to a pudding-off. Not just any pudding-off, but one complicated by workplace hierarchies and thinly veiled culinary rivalries. The rules? None, apparently. The challenge? Accepted. With zeal.

So with the context of a pudding-off framing my weekend, I was in a cooking mood. I was thinking sweet and savory, scouring old food blogs, opening the cookbooks I got for Christmas. And sure enough, what shows up in my mailbox? Julie/Julia. Now, I know, I know, I have thoroughly enjoyed mocking that movie since it came out. It's not that I dont adore Julia Child, it was the smarmy cuteness and can-do chutzpa of Amy Adams that got my goat. And the fact that it was so f-ing popular, every yuppie in starbucks was now bragging about how they had Mastered the Art of French Cooking. Like other things, I am easily peeved when my favorite things become trends. No, I am not good at sharing.

But I digress. I had been passive-aggressively moving Julie/Julia down in my netflix cue as a way of postponing the inevitable. And sure enough, the darn thing one-upped me and passive-aggressively showed up in my mailbox when I wasn't looking. And yes, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (although i think i enjoyed Julie's husband more than her), its depiction of the joys of eating and cooking, and the farce that overly ambitious cooking can be.

It seemed only appropriate to cook while watching a cooking movie. I was eager to try my favorite frienemy food blogger's olive oil  tart crust recipe (you win this round, Clotilde), and I happened to be in possession of a large quantity of leeks and shallots (what?). I had a lovely afternoon making this caramelized leek and gruyere tart (almost as much as I enjoyed eating it at 2 am saturday night). And with the leftover scraps of crust, the cutest tart that ever was was born (pictured above).

But it was not over! No, not by a long shot. I also had a recipe to test for the Holy of Holies, Cook's Illustrated. That's right, they want my opinion. What can I say? My reputation preceeds me. Anyway, I had to make this very un-exciting looking spinach salad with carrots and oranges (can you say booooring?). Peeling oranges and taking off the skins and pith is never my idea of a great time, but you can imagine how much fun it was with a ginormous hangover and no hairs of the dog in sight. Needless to say, I gave them a piece of my mind in my report. (To be prudent, the salad was actually pretty interesting. It had a sesame oil-based creamy dressing which was tasty, and toasted sesame seeds on top. Nice, but not really up to par for Cooks Illustrated) In any case, a very nice dinner of savory leek tarte, spinach salad, and Dolcetta D'Alba went perfectly with Sunday night football.

To round out the weekend were two of the worst-timed visits to the food coop ever conceived. Note to self: do not go to the coop on a sunday morning with a hangover, or you WILL start a fistfight with the lady with a double stroller. I mean really, a double stroller? How many kids do you have to have, lady?! It was only for fear of being suspended from the Coop for beating a child with a flaxseed baguette that I was able to restrain myself.